For Turkey’s president, tensions are set aside
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey as a stalwart ally in the battle against Islamic extremism, ignoring Erdogan’s authoritarian crackdown on his own people and brushing aside recent tensions between the United States and Turkey over how to wage the military campaign against the Islamic State.
Welcoming Erdogan to the White House, Trump said, “Today, we face a new enemy in the fight against terrorism, and again we seek to face this threat together.”
Trump said the United States supported Turkey’s battle against both the Islamic State and the PKK, a Kurdish militant group carrying out an insurgency inside Turkey. The Trump administration has decided to supply weapons to the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia fighting alongside Syrian Arab forces against the Islamic State. That has caused tensions with Turkey, which says the Syrian Kurds are allied with the Turkish Kurds.
Turkey is also pushing for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania, whom the Turkish government accuses of orchestrating a coup attempt against Erdogan in July.
None of these thorny issues were mentioned when Trump and Erdogan delivered statements in the Roosevelt Room, eschewing the news conference that former President Barack Obama typically held with Erdogan after their meetings. Trump greeted Erdogan warmly.
Erdogan praised Trump for the “legendary triumph” he had achieved in the election and declared that his first meeting with the new president would be a “historical turn of tide” in the Turkey-U.S. relationship.
As he has with other strongman leaders, like President Xi Jinping of China and President AbdelFattah el-Sissi of Egypt, Trump has signaled support for Erdogan far beyond that afforded him by Obama, with whom he had an initially productive relationship that deteriorated after the autocratic turn in Erdogan’s leadership.
Last month, Trump called Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a much-disputed referendum that cemented his autocratic rule over Turkey and, many analysts say, eroded its democratic institutions. And Trump has not pressed Erdogan on human rights abuses, including a broad crackdown on the news media and strict detention policies.
Amnesty International said the meeting would be “an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the way that President Trump and President Erdogan are contributing to a global climate of toxic and dehumanizing politics.”
“President Trump recently praised President Erdogan for winning a referendum in which dissenting opinions were ruthlessly suppressed, yet President Trump has been silent on Turkey’s alarming crackdown on the media,” said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “The world will be watching, hoping that both presidents will reaffirm their commitments to protecting human rights.”